Sept 73 came from seeing a guy play great songs to an empty bar. It was the end of the month, and I guessed everyone was out trying to meet their sales targets before pay day. Bad time to play, the end of the month.

This is an update. I found out how to delete the long silence at the beginning of the previous version without getting all the tracks out of sync.

I posted a video on Myspace of two Africans, Moussa Diabate
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=10279444
and his nephew in west Burkina Faso playing the biggest balafon I've ever seen. I counted 24 notes before losing count. The gourds are even sticking out round the sides there are so many. I have a Ghanain 10 note balafon which I've owned for 5 years or so. I can play one original riff, and lots of riffs from a tape. I had lots of trouble recording it, and it defies a click track. But here is my riff, Balafonic.

This song is pretty gloomy I guess. It's about that blue jean image. It's indestructible, right? There are some jazz ideas here. I never really wrote this, it just grew from a riff, than I croaked some words into a mike, then I added the strange jazz riffs. I took a leaf out of Christopher David's songwriting. Check out myspace.com/christopherdaviduk.

I wrote a song with only a refrain, Don't Spoil It, and sent it to the singer, songwriter, and gourd banjo player Plastic Dave, aka Squid Ink at myspace.com/evadcitsalp. He wrote and recorded some incredible verses, with additional drums, bass, and banjo. Here's the result.

At long last, my song Some Day Soon is now available here. I recorded it on Sony laptop, Shure mike, Line 6 tone port, Taylor acoustic, and Fender strat. Here's what people say:

"'some day soon' is just beautiful, the guitar playing is wonderful, the lyrics are pure poetry and the melody just blows me away with its dynamics...
...great one!

Download it now.

My song I'm Not Strong Enough remixed by MiNiMaL_aRT, at ccMixter.org.

The songwriting podcast by Ian Duncan Smith describes the steps hat went into recording the offbeat folky song Looking Back.

An acoustic folky sounding song from the pen of Ian Duncan Smith.

An acoustic folky song with words.

The Riff, the songwriters' podcast. This week Ian Duncan Smith brings updates on his song, I Don't Know What I'm Doing, remixed by Slumberlords at ccMixter.org. If you don't know what ccMixter.org is, have a look now. Also, he plays a new improved version of I'm Not Strong Enough. Finally, he describes the early stages of a new as yet unnamed song.

My songwriting week. Last week, I was working through some ideas, but this week I abandoned all of that when I hit on a great new riff.

Bombero's great mix of my original song from ccMixter.org.

The second songwriting podcast by Ian Duncan Smith of The Hexyl Circle. The Beatles', I Feel Fine. The greatest riff and bridge of all time. Plus news of my own riff, Don't Know What I'm Doing.

Welcome to the first of my podcasts on songwriting, The Riff. My name is Ian Duncan Smith. My songs are up at www.myspace.com/thehexylcircle, and ccMixter. In this podcast, I play my song, Who Am I To Disagree  (MiNiMa) remixed by MiNiMaL.aRT, featuring Stefsax. I play a recent riff I'm working on, and show how it's developing. Work In Progress.

Doodling with D7 and Am produced this riff a few months ago. Recently, I started a resonant high vocal to sing along with, and I thought I'd record it.

Ian Duncan Smith reads his story There Has to Be a Better Balance on Plastic Dave's Podcast. Listen to Plastic Dave at http://www.myspace.com/evadcitsalp.

Dear All, Listen to Plastic Dave's Podcast Show. Plastic Dave is at http://www.myspace.com/evadcitsalp. This is my contribution. It's an exclusive debut of my new song, Some Day Soon. Don't forget to check out http://www.myspace.com/thehexylcircle. Bye for now.